The Washington Post reports—yet again—that conservative parent/activists are running for and often winning seats on local school boards in order to change school policies on virtual learning, masks, and the kinds of books in school libraries. Regardless of what one thinks about the specific policy changes that school board candidates may propose, the whole issue illustrates the problem of public schooling: that there must be one solution for a whole school district, a whole state, or even the whole country.
Over the years parents, taxpayers, and other voters have disagreed over many things: evolution, school prayer, the Pledge of Allegiance, school uniforms, gay teachers, teaching tolerance, drug testing. This year the flashpoints seem to be masks and what teachers and books should say about America’s racial history. Many conservatives object to books and curricula based on what they perceive as “critical race theory,” blaming white students for their “privilege,” or helping gay students understand themselves. But other government officials and activists are removing books deemed insufficiently progressive.
I recall a fight in the 1990s over the “Children of the Rainbow” curriculum in the New York City schools. Christian conservatives objected that the schools were going to teach “complete acceptance” of homosexuality, and a school board president said, “We will not accept two people of the same sex engaged in deviant sex practices as ‘family.’” The school board elections in 1996 brought the issue to a head and illustrated the problems with a monopoly school system run through a more or less democratic process. Unlike monopoly schools run by undemocratic systems—as in communist countries but also some democratic countries such as France and Japan, where there’s very little public control over the education ministries—political activists can force their agendas on the schools, diverting them from a strict focus on education.
That was clear in New York, where the ruling establishment’s attempt to impose the multicultural, pro-gay curriculum on all schools created fierce opposition, leading to the removal of Superintendent Joseph Fernandez. Emboldened by popular opposition to the Rainbow Curriculum, the Catholic Church teamed up with Pat Robertson’s Christian Coalition to try to take over the city’s 32 community school boards. The cultural elite fought back, pulling together a coalition including the United Federation of Teachers, key supporters of then-Mayor David Dinkins, People for the American Way, and gay activists. The two groups fought bitterly for the right to impose their own moral and cultural values on New York’s 1 million schoolchildren. In the end, it was a draw. One report said that the religious right elected 51 of 87 endorsed candidates, while the cultural elite elected 50 of 84 candidates.
One other thing we learned in that fight was the indifference of most people to such political battles. After a bitter and well-publicized campaign, including several front-page news stories, turnout increased from the normal 7 percent to 12.5 percent of the electorate. Sometimes democracy is just a battle among elites and activists, ignored by most citizens.
It seems hardly necessary to point out that letting parents choose the schools their children will attend would end this political warfare over who gets to propagandize a captive audience of impressionable children.
